Israeli American FBI contractor pleads to secrecy charge

WASHINGTON (JTA) — An Israeli American who did linguistic work for the FBI on contract pleaded guilty to leaking five secret documents to a blogger.

Shamai Kedem Leibowitz, also known as Samuel Shamai Leibowitz, faces up to 20 months in prison after his guilty plea in Greenbelt, Md., the Web site Politico reported.

The public record does not identify the information or the person who received the information further except to say that Leibowitz worked for an FBI task force in Calverton, Md. Politico notes that the FBI’s Innocent Images task force, which tackles child pornography, is located in Calverton.

Leibowitz ran two blogs: Israel-Law.org related to Israeli law; Pursuing Justice dealt with U.S. law. The most recent entry on Pursuing Justice, dated Nov. 9, deals with the rights of juveniles.

Leibowitz also has a past as a far-left Israeli peace activist who favored a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

His grandfather, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, was an Orthodox Israeli philosopher who spoke out against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.